Chapter 2

"Surprise!"

It had been ten years since that door had last opened to him and the shock could have been no greater had Devorlane limped across the damaged stone threshold into the wrong house.

That Tilly, damn her, should still be able to do this to him-and more. This wasn't just about her outmaneuvering him. How much of his precious inheritance had been squandered on this damned wasteful nonsense? On making absolutely certain each and every one of those present was prepared to be in the same room as him?

Recognizing not one in the sea of faces, he could only assume it might be the whole damn lot, every brass farthing of it. In addition to the carriage loads of people she must have wheeled from London, scoured the hedgerows, the workhouses, the cottages of the poor, to find, she must have spent hours putting them through their dull but important paces. Now can we, all of us, please just remember? Devorlane's a soldier, not a thief.

"Guv... "

He turned his head. "Make one move and I'll kill you before you reach the door. I mean it."

Of course he didn't. He had known Charlie too long and owed him too much. But to turn on his heel and walk out now would be admitting that the stabs of memories knifing from every candlelit corner were too great. He would, if Charlie didn't damn well stand beside him. Chloe too, he thought, naming her in that second, whether it was what she was born with or not.

How foolish would that be, when he was no longer a humble pawn standing on this checkered floor, but king of this particular castle.

"Devorlane."

He frowned. The kiss plastered on his cheek was so gin sodden, it almost knocked him sideways. Tilly? Tilly ... drunk? So much couldn't have changed since he last stood between the Ionic columns his late father, the third Duke, possessed such fondness for that he'd had them installed in every nook and cranny, could it? She couldn't be so foxed she hung on his shoulder like a piece of paper? Plastering kisses? On him?

"I can't tell you-hic-how very galad, glad, I am-hic-how glad we all of us gathered here today are, you've finally come home, Devorlane." She waved an empty champagne flute beneath his nose.

Tilly, more lined than a rutted farm track and soused worse than a pickled herring, were two shocks.

For heaven's sake, he hadn't scoured London, its underworld dregs and whore palaces, seeking the most delectable creature he could find, for her not even to be noticed. By any of them. For him to stand here feeling vaguely as if his behavior wasn't just expected, it was perfectly acceptable. He narrowed his eyes. With this crowd it probably wasn't just acceptable, it was every bit as typical of their own.

Well, he wouldn't be outmanoeuvered. The sooner Tilly learned what his plans for Chessington were, and how she would be leaving within the next half hour, the better. Provided she could stand up, that was. Her present inability didn't give him much cause for hope.

"Words finally failed you, have they? That must be a first."

"Oh, s'not at all, Devorlane. S'in fact, s'it's probably a hundredth. A thousandth even. But come in, come in. Bring your friends. Then you can all be drunk too."

"I've no wish to be damn well drunk too."

He lied. Of course. Drink. Drugs. Women. It would be very nice to deny it, but he didn't imagine she was unacquainted with the facts. Or perhaps it was simple shock he was no longer the little brother she could bully that made her widen her eyes.

"But surely you can see-hic-you have guests."

"I'm sure I do, but as I didn't ask them particularly, I don't see why I should have to be particular about entertaining them either."

"But your friends here, Devorlane, wouldn't they s'like to be s'introduced?"

The creature it had taken two weeks to find extended her grubby paw. "'Ow sin? 'Ow very kind of yer. I'm always up for a bitta sin. Ain't I, Dev? You know, we both are."

"How very good that is to know-hic. After all, Devorlane, what would our dear papa say if I didn't make your dear guests welcome?"

"Not a hell of a lot, I imagine. He's been dead two years. Now this place is mine-"

"S'of course, Devorlane. S'of course. It's yours. S'it's what dearest Papa and dearest Mama and dearest Ardent, God rest them, all their souls, wanted. You to have it. All of it."

"Is that so? Ardent dropped down dead just to oblige me, did he? Quite a feat, even for Ardent."

"On his death bed Papa said-hic."

Devorlane was quite sure he hadn't-certainly not as Tilly did, since the old duke was completely tee-total, which was why, mastering the bolt of agony that seared his thigh, he strode forward. Anything rather than listen to this soused horse piss.

"He regretted it." Tilly followed on his heels, like a puppy. "Driving you away. Papa spent a fortune trying to find that, that girl. You know the one."

As if he could forget. As if he could ever forget.

"A fortune wasted then, dearest sister. We all know who took the emeralds. Me."

He halted. When he gained his revenge as he was about to do, it would be good to look into her eyes. "But I will say it's kind of you to lay on the champagne. Your departure should be toasted."

"Sapphire."

Damn it. Didn't she hear him? Or did she choose not to, dragging that damn bitch's name into the equation? As if she had somehow only suddenly remembered it.

"Yes," Tilly said. "But never mind her. Or all this s'nuff and nonsense about departure. You and your friends will s'like the crowd in here. Come and see. They're young."